Girl Power was the order of the day at WEG in the Team Final

Friday 21 September 2018

Girl Power was the order of the day at WEG in the Team Final

 

 

Despite a tremendous clear round from Amanda Derbyshire and just a single time penalty from Holly Smith it was an 8th place finish for the Brits in the Team Final at the World Equestrian Games at Tryon in the USA today. Amanda’s clear with Luibanta BH has also seen her rise up the league table to sit in overall 15th place overnight and qualify for the Individual Final on Sunday.

This afternoon’s Team Final was an incredibly hard fought one with the home nation USA taking Gold after a thrilling head-to-head jump off for prime position on the podium against Sweden who had to satisfy themselves with Silver.  The third medal, Bronze, went to Germany with Switzerland who had held the lead across the initial two days of competition relegated to 4th.

It was not only medals that were being contested with all of the ten nations that had qualified for the Final focused on also picking up one of the six qualifying tickets to the Tokyo Olympic Games.  With them being awarded to the six highest placed nations it was the Netherlands and Australia who took the remaining two with their 5th and 6th place respective finish.

Brits
With all teams carrying their cumulative scores from the previous two legs of the competition, Great Britain came forward in 9th place with their score of 31.04 penalties.  In the same order as previously, William Funnell, from Kent, with the Billy Stud’s 10 year-old chestnut gelding Billy Buckingham took the role of pathfinder.  A fence down early on in the course followed by the middle part of the combination, which caught many,  along with a front pole of an oxer towards the latter end of the course saw them pick up 13 penalties for finishing just outside the time to become the drop score.  Talking afterwards Will said “It’s the fourth day that they’ve been jumping and he’s a big horse but it’s the same for everybody; it would have been nice to finish on a better note but I am still pleased with him. He was only back a couple of weeks before Hickstead earlier this season so this is only his sixth or seventh show so it’s all come quite quick for him but he’s had a good year.”

Holly Smith from Leicestershire with Hearts Destiny, a 9 year-old bay gelding owned by both herself, husband Graham and T J Hall Limited raised the hopes of the British supporters when they returned home having left all fences untouched, albeit just outside the time allowed to pick up a single time penalty. Looking as fresh as they had on Day 1 their debut on a Championship team has certainly been a notable one as has their performances across the nations cup series this season.  Acknowledging Heart’s Destiny’s talent Holly explained “He was jumping the best he has all week, I just let him down with the time fault. I’m completely delighted with him, he’s shown how world class he is today and so much to build-on for next year.”

With Holly having raised GB supporter’s spirits Amanda Derbyshire from Lancashire riding Gochman Sport Horse LLC’s 10 year-old bay mare Luibanta BH sent them soaring when she posted an incredible clear.  Coached by fellow Brit Nick Skelton CBE, the current Olympic Individual Gold medallist, her round was foot-perfect and forward going enough to see her break the finish line with time to spare on a zero penalty score.  Having started the competition in overall 25th place, Amanda’s performance saw her leap ten placings up the Individual leader board to finish in 15th place overnight and qualify for the Individual Final which will see the top 25 combinations come forward. Chatting after her round Amanda, who is also making her debut on a championship team, said “The first half of the round she was jumping great; I got a little lucky, she rubbed the combination [fence], I didn’t know whether it fell or not, so I just thought keep going for the time, I didn’t want to get a time fault, and we really rattled the last jump but somehow it stayed up. She just did brilliant. The jumps were big, and jumping in the heat of the day, but I just thought she was brilliant and she just really tried her best out there. She just put everything in for me today.”

For William Whitaker from West Yorkshire with Ludwig and Yasmine Criel’s 14 year-old bay stallion Utamaro d’Ecaussines it was two fences down to finish on an 8 penalty score. They had looked extremely solid as they started off and set to jump clear however an error at the latter end of the course saw the pick up 4 penalties when they touched a pole at the fence following the combination.  Another 4 penalties were unfortunately accrued at the penultimate fence to give them an 8 penalty finish score and the disappointment on Will’s face was all too evident to see as it meant that GB slipped down from 6th place where they had currently been sitting into 8th.  Expressing his thoughts Will commented “We’re very disappointed. I came here with a lot of confidence and my horse has had a really good season but it’s just been one of those weeks where it hasn’t come up for us. I have high standards for myself and my horse and I don’t think we’ve met those standards this week but my horse did his best, he always does, and I couldn’t have asked for more. We were in a situation today where we had to jump a clear round but we haven’t managed to do it. We’ll try and work out what went wrong and look ahead to next year.”

Di Lampard
Reviewing the team performances after the Final placings had been confirmed Di Lampard, World Class Performance Manager for Showjumping, furthered “It’s been a tough week in the office but they’ve been a great team. The spirit has been fantastic and everyday they’ve gone back and re-grouped and helped each other and I am really proud of them. We were so close today. We came here to qualify for Tokyo [2020 Olympic Games], that has been the main aim and we were so close. We’ve got some young horses on the team and some young riders on the team and for three of them this is their first world championships. The future is looking really good and we will look to next year.”

For Great Britain the next chance to qualify for the Olympic Games in 2020 will be at the European Championships next year in Rotterdam.  Following that there will be a last chance to qualify for nations that are yet to do so at the 2019 Nations Cup Final in Barcelona.

Full results can be found by visiting www.tryon2018.com and updates and information in respect of how to watch the action from WEG can be found by visiting the specific Tryon 2018 section at www.equestrianteamgbr.co.uk

Equestrian Team GBR is supported by the UK Sport National Lottery funded World Class Programme; the British teams are very grateful to the support they receive from the British Equestrian Federation Fund and official partners Dodson and Horrell, Equi-Trek, FALPRO England, Musto, NAF and Point Two.

Image:  Amanda Derbyshire & Luibanta BH
Copyright:  Shannon Brinkmann

 
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